Amphibia Mundi

Taxonomy is a living area of biological sciences and includes two major tasks, the establishment and use of taxa, names allocated to organisms, and the allocation of Linnean ranks to those taxa. As knowledge grows and as new organisms are discovered, taxonomy necessarily changes, and so any taxonomy can never be definitive. Rather, taxonomies can be viewed as working hypotheses. There are several on-going approaches to taxonomy and there is not a general agreement among different workers as to which taxonomy is to be preferred. We live in an era of Linnean taxonomy, which has a long history and is subject to international rules that have been agreed upon by representatives of the biological research community. Amphibia Mundi is a new publication series of taxonomic catalogues and lists that will allow users of taxonomic data to stay in touch with the "state of the art" of amphiban taxonomy, as envisioned by one group of workers. As a service to users of AmphibiaWeb, we make available downloadable files of this important publication series, courtesy of the editor and author or coauthor of the first numbers, Professor Alain Dubois of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France.

Introduction to Amphibia Mundi. This file contains background information concerning the establishment and goals of the Amphibia Mundi program.
Amphibia Mundi: call for contributions.
Alytes, 2004, 21 (3-4) 171-173

Amphibia Mundi I. This file contains the first number of Amphibia Mundi, which is a working taxonomy of the living amphibians and their fossil relatives, down to the subgeneric level.
The higher nomenclature of recent amphibians
Alytes, 2004, 22 (1-2) 1-14

Amphibia Mundi II. This file contains new names proposed for amphibians between 1981 and 2002, with commentary.
Amphibia Mundi 1.2: Recent amphibians: generic and infrageneric taxonomic additions (1981-2002)
Alytes, 2004, 23 (1-2) 25-69

Amphibia Mundi III. This file contains new names at the suprageneric level proposed for amphibians between 1967 and 2002, with commentary.
Amphibia Mundi 1.3: Suprageneric taxonomic additions
Alytes, 2004, 23 (1-2) 70-80

Alytes
Professor Alain Dubois is the editor of the journal Alytes, the official publication of the International Society for the Study and Conservation of Amphibians (ISSCA), also known as the International Society of Batrachology. A regular subscription to Alytes, which includes membership in ISSCA and receipt of its newletter Circalytes, costs 50 dollars or euros (25 for students). Full subscription details are provided in this downloadable PDF. Also available is a downloadable PDF containing information for publishing in Alytes.